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Muslims: An Untapped Advertising Resource

By Michael Musco"Islamic marketing," some experts say, is the next wave in branding. Paul Temporal, an associate fellow at the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, tells the New York Times, "For the last few years, it's been China and India. The next big market is the Muslim market. There's this huge group of people who have been relatively untapped in terms of what they want and need, and they represent a tremendous opportunity."

John Goodman, Ogilvy & Mather's regional director for South and Southeast Asia, is more blunt, saying, "It's like being in 1990 and telling people that China doesn't matter. Twenty years ago you might have said that, but now you're being foolish."

There are approximately 1.57 billion Muslims, which comes out to roughly one-fifth of the world's population. Like Mr. Temporal said above, it represents a tremendous opportunity and a virtually untapped resource. Agencies need to get on this quick. It's money in the bank. Maybe some of the big dogs should consider sprouting some sort of Muslim branches. A lot of agencies are going to shit and this just might be the key to get back in the game. We shall see.

With all this being said, there is still plenty of controversy going on with the Muslim community. We've covered a bit of the shenanigans going on about the mosque being built near Ground Zero, which is still apparently a huge issue. The MTA has approved a new anti-mosque ad (below) to be placed on trains and buses for the next month which you can view after the jump and there's even aTV spot of Buffalo businessman and Republican candidate Carl Paladino basically trashing the building of the mosque along with his Republican opponent Rick Lazio. I think it's time for that good ol' Rodney King quote, "Can't we all just get along?"